


But Broken Live On

by raendown



Series: MadaTobiWeek2018 [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-19 10:29:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15508059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Shattered by those they trusted, Madara and Tobirama bring the jagged pieces of themselves together in the practice of kintsugi. What once was broken is brought back to life with an unexpected appeal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from a Lord Byron quote, "The heart will break, but broken live on."

It was hard to say which surprised him more: finding out that his partner of six months had been cheating on him for two or finding Madara half-drunk in the same bar he had chosen to drink his own worries away in. After standing in the rain for five minutes because the shock of seeing his partner fucking another man had rendered him immobile and forced him to watch for that long, dealing with a drunken and possibly volatile Madara seemed like a great time in comparison.

And what did he have to lose, really?

Tobirama ignored the bartender’s pitying look when he ordered two bottles of sake and no cups, only tossed a few notes on the counter and swiped his poison of choice, toting them over to where his worst enemy sat slumped halfway down his seat. When he slid in across the booth Madara blinked at him foggily.

“Yeah,” Tobirama agreed with the other man’s vacant expression. “It’s been that sort of day.”

Halfway in to his first bottle his noticed that the other patrons in the bar were giving them a wide berth, likely more afraid of the violence they were capable of rather than the trouble they were likely to cause. Anyone with eyes could see that neither of them were in the mood for more than drowning their respective woes. Still, he was grateful for the privacy it afforded them both; despite sitting only a tabletop apart, the lack of interaction made it feel as though he were perfectly alone.

Eventually, once he’d gotten about a third of the way in to the second bottle, Madara stirred and seemed to finally register that there was someone sitting across from him. His dark eyes squinted blearily in an attempt to steady his vision but when he figured out it was only Tobirama he did nothing but slump further down and wave his hand sloppily for another bottle of whatever he was drinking. When the bartender arrived to drop it off Tobirama caught his arm and quietly asked for two more bottles.

“Are you certain that’s a good idea, Senju-sama?” the man asked nervously. Tobirama glowered.

“Just for that you can bring three and I’ll thank you to shove your opinions up your own ass.”

He scoffed as the man scuttled off. Across the table, Madara let out a rumbling belch.

“Coward,” he commented shortly.

“All men are cowards.” Tobirama swigged down the last of his first round of sake, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. “Dirty cowards who can’t say shit to your face but they sure can fuck around when your back is turned.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Madara conceded.

After watching his companion drain his own bottle Tobirama gave him an assessing look. “You drink like this a lot?” It certainly would explain why he was so grumpy all the time if he was constantly dealing with hangovers. Madara shook his head no, disproving his half-baked theory before it was fully formed.

“Special occasion,” the man grunted. Tobirama had never heard anyone put so much venom in to two simple words. Nor had he ever been so intrigued.

“Go on then, what are we celebrating?”

“The cowardice of men and the fucking around they do behind our backs.”

“Right. Right.”

Neither of them spoke as their drinks arrived on a tray, served to them with a tight expression. Tobirama stared the bartender down until the man turned and walked away with his spine held stiffly upright, his body language caught halfway between offended and terrified. Civilians were fun to rile up, even if he had too much decorum when sober to lower himself to such petty activities.

Alone again, both of them picked up whichever alcohol happened to be closest to hand, paying little attention to who ordered what, and raised their bottles to clink them together in the most depressing toast Tobirama had ever seen. Once they had both drank deeply and he had discovered that Madara preferred whiskey as his alcohol of choice, he mirrored his companions pose with a heavy slump.

“I’m sure you’ll be ecstatic to know that you are now only my second least favorite person in the world. Never thought I would hate anyone more than I hate you but life’s funny like that, I guess. Except I’m not laughing.”

“You’ve never laughed in your life,” Madara pointed out, following his observation with a muted hiccup.

Lowering his chin, Tobirama looking his companion dead in the eye and flatly drawled, “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Oh much better.”

“Hn.”

“So I know what ruined _my_ life. What’s got _your_ panties in a twist?”

“Excuse you but I do not wear panties.” Tobirama frowned, trailing of for a moment. “And if I did I would look fantastic in them. Not the point. I don’t wear panties. I mean Jurou asked me to once but _fuck him_.”

“Here here!” Madara chugged back a few mouthfuls. “Why are we fucking him?”

Tobirama threw both hands in to the air wildly, just barely missing one of the sake bottles. “Because he’s fucking other men! Six months! Down the fucking drain! I gave him everything he ever asked of me and what do I get for it? Nothing. I get fucked around.”

In his anger he almost didn’t notice the unsteady yet contemplative look he was getting,

“You get cheated on too?” Madara asked, his voice strangely quiet. Tobirama snapped his head around, pausing to press the heel of his hand against his forehead when the motion caused the room to spin around him and sent a wave of nausea crawling down his throat. When he regained his bearings he dropped the hand.

“Too?” was all he managed to say. Madara grunted.

“At least all you wasted was six months and not two damn years.”

Scrunching up his nose, Tobirama grunted back. “Didn’t even know you were dating anyone, to be honest.”

“Yeah well, same to you. Who would date your stupid cold face?”

“Well I thought Jurou but look how that one panned out for me.” It was no wonder he never took his brother up on all those offers to talk when he felt down. Rehashing it now really wasn’t helping him feel any better. Clearly he was not the talk therapy type.

Madara shifted in his seat, a flash of guilt there and gone from his face in the same moment. “I get that.”

“What about you, huh? Two years. That’s…that’s really shitty, Uchiha.”

“Shitty doesn’t even begin to describe it. I mean, I’m not saying I was perfect to him or nothin’. But he never complained so how was I supposed to know he wasn’t happy? Then I go out to the shed to grab…and he’s… _shit_.” Unable to make himself say it, Madara shook his head violently, trying to cast the images out by sheer force of will.

“We should do something about it.” Generally not a man much given to crimes of passion, revenge served hot sounded much better to him after – Tobirama had no idea how much sake he had consumed by this point.

“Yes! We should! We should fuck around on _them_!”

Tobirama let his head fall back so he could bark out a laugh. “It wouldn’t accomplish much,” he pointed out. “But damn if that doesn’t sound like it would make me feel a hell of a lot better. Get what you give or however that saying goes.”

Struggling to right himself on his sticky booth seat, Madara leaned forward across the table, hair spilling over the scuffed wood like swirling pools of ink. “We should – we should go fuck. In one of their beds. That’d fucking show ‘em we don’t care. That they don’t matter! We don’t need them, right?” His eyes were full of shadows and fire and Tobirama smothered the last shreds of sobriety and good sense with a wicked grin.

“Right,” he breathed.

How they got out of the bar, he didn’t know. It was almost like he had accidentally used his hiraishin without knowing as one minute they were standing on shaky knees and holding on to the table to steady themselves, then the next they were stumbling down a half lit street somewhere, laughing raucously as they used each other for support. He couldn’t remember if they paid for the rest of their drinks or not but such a small detail felt so far away when he was much too busy admiring the flush of intoxication on Madara’s cheeks.

Where they were or where they were going felt supremely unimportant and Tobirama wondered for a moment if he had ever been so free of worry before in all his life. Suddenly he had a new appreciation for why Hashirama liked to get drunk in the gambling dens so often. If this was what it felt like to lose his head to alcohol then he wondered why more people didn’t do this every day.

Surely the morning headaches couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as the rumors made them out to be. Hashirama had always been a shameless exaggerator.

Eventually they stumbled inside a house whose wards nearly fried him alive before Madara disarmed them at the last minute, snickering and describing in awful detail the gruesome death he had only barely avoided. Tobirama listened, fascinated.

“I don’t think I’d like that,” he decided after a very serious moment of consideration.

“Yeah, you’d look even dumber with your head fried off,” Madara agreed.

They fumbled through the door together, hands fisted in each other’s clothing as both of them tried to pull themselves upright using the other’s shirt. Laughter slowly faded away in to silence, the sound of it gradually swallowed up in the dark emptiness of the home, and Tobirama only realized he was up against a wall when Madara pressed in closer to him and there was no room to back up.

When his swaying vision found Madara’s face, there was a heat in his eyes and a grin on his mouth – and Tobirama had never found him so attractive.

“Are you going to kiss me?”

“Maybe.” Pushing up on to his toes so that their eyes were level, Madara bit his lip and did his best to pretend his fingers weren’t tracing the shapes underneath Tobirama’s skin tight shirt. “Didn’t we come here to fuck? Around? I mean we can fuck _and_ fuck them around I, uh, think. Yeah?”

“Same thing,” Tobirama managed to spit out before lurching across the last couple of inches before them and crashing their mouths together. Embarrassingly, he mostly missed. On the other hand it didn’t seem like his companion cared very much. After correcting for his bad aim, Madara kissed him back with more passion than Tobirama had been on the receiving end of in his last three relationships combined, drawing a satisfied groan from his throat in response.

Their feet stumbled as Madara pulled them away from the wall, guiding the way blindly through the house, but both of them refused to separate. It felt amazing to experience passion again, to feel wanted and desired after the shock of realizing that they weren’t enough for the others who were meant to be loyal to them. Alcohol left their bodies both numb and hyper aware and that was enough to distract from the vague looming thought of what consequences might await them after tonight, leaving them free to indulge in the rush of what was happening in the here and now.

Eventually they made it deeper in to the house and managed to tumble down on top of a bed. Not even Madara seemed completely sure that this was indeed his own bed but it mattered little to either of them as he threw a leg over to straddle Tobirama’s thighs, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

“I want – I want to _ride you_.”

Tobirama grunted, more than okay with that but lacking the faculties to express his agreement. Instead he reached up to pull Madara down in to another kiss while his other hand began to tug at someone’s obi; his or Madara’s he had no idea. They struggled together to remove their clothing, giggling together as well when Madara’s shirt got stuck in his hair and when Tobirama couldn’t reach to remove his pants with another body sitting across his hips.

Amusement was forgotten as soon as they were naked, however. Hands immediately began to wander, tracing muscles and stroking skin, clumsy in their inebriation but the floating sensation of the drink only increasing their excitement. Madara whined when Tobirama’s fingers found his entrance, bucking in to the touch. In return Tobirama pressed more firmly against him even as his other hand lifted away to search under the pillow and on top of the night stand.

“Damn it,” he cursed. “Where the hell-? Lube. Need – ah!” A shudder wracked his body and cut off his words, distracted by the teeth Madara had just clamped in to the tendons of his neck.

“Under the pillow.”

“S’not there.”

“Inside the – the pillowcase.”

“Ugh. Difficult.”

As soon as Tobirama found the little tube he’d been sure would be close at hand, he wasted little time in popping off the cap and distributing a small amount, reaching around to press his fingers back to the spot they had just been prodding. A sloppy grin of triumph lit his features when Madara whined again and pressed back, gasping when two of his fingers slid in together.

“No slow,” Madara growled. “Need – _ahhh_.”

“Need to shut up and lemme work is what you need.” Tobirama did his best to ignore the flush on his cheeks. For some reason it felt incredibly important that Madara not know how much he was enjoying himself at the moment and yet he was determined to make this good for the older man.

It was obvious he was doing well at that endeavor, too. Madara squirmed and bucked, his hips writhing constantly as he fucked himself open on two, then three of Tobirama’s fingers. Each time he found the angle for those fingers to brush up against his prostate he gave off sharp cries of ecstasy and shuddered until he lost the angle and had to search for it all over again. Tobirama encouraged him with unsteady caresses of his free hand even as his mouth mumbled a continuous stream of nonsensical words, half praising and half teasing the man for his enthusiasm.

Madara either didn’t care or couldn’t hear him past the blood thundering in his own ears as he continued to writhe and pant until finally his cries turned to half-coherent begging.

“I’m – I’m open, I’m fine. Need – just _fuck me_ already! Gods stop, stop, let me ride you damn it!”

Rather than giving any sort of articulate response, the only thing Tobirama could do was gurgle out a sound even he didn’t recognize, removing his fingers hastily to reach down and use a bit of leftover slick to coat himself with. He guided Madara’s hips to where they needed to be and then gently encouraged him to slide down.

Completely unaware of how utterly wrecked his expression was, he didn’t understand why Madara was moaning before he even sank down on the prize he had just been begging for. As soon as he did, however, neither one of them were capable of thinking too much beyond the sensation of a tight grip around a thick cock. If Madara had been sober he would have noticed the pain of not being stretched enough but in his current state he was overwhelmed with nothing but the need for more.

What he did notice was his own lack of coordination and how difficult it was to lift his body up when he could barely feel his own limbs. Resting his elbows on the mattress and raising his forearms, Tobirama helped by giving Madara somewhere to brace himself, their fingers entwined as the older man used his palms to push off of. He must have found a good angle once again because right from the very first time he raised himself up and let gravity bring him back down he was moaning like a cheap whore.

As most drunken sex is, it was sloppy. Tobirama did what he could to rock with the hips riding him perhaps rougher than should have been pleasant. Madara’s throat grew hoarse with more noise than he had likely ever made before during this type of activity. Neither of their movements had any of the usual elegance they exuded yet it still felt incredible. Something about the wildness of their joining, the lack of inhibitions in their every thrust and cry, made the experience more intense than anything either of them could remember.

It didn’t last very long, though. Within barely a handful of minutes Madara was gasping, head thrown back to let his hair spill across Tobirama’s thighs while he babbled at the ceiling.

“Close! _Fuck_ so close! Just like this…just like this…”

“Don’t,” Tobirama groaned underneath him. “Just wait for me you – _hnn_ – you bastard.”

“But–!”

Squeezing their linked fingers, Tobirama closed his eyes tightly as rocked his hips with increasing urgency, chasing the end he could feel dancing just out of reach. He needed something, although it took an embarrassingly long time to realize what.

Madara nearly squealed when Tobirama let the support of his arms fall away, bringing the man crashing down on his chest. Tobirama drew him in to a searing kiss and rocked his hips again, thrusting a hand between them to stroke his partner and that was it. Both of them tumbled over the edge to the broken rhythm of their bodies, voices muffled as they continued to kiss almost violently, biting at lips and sliding their tongues together until finally their hips went still and Madara collapsed helplessly on to the man beneath him.

Chests heaving, limbs trembling, neither of them spoke for a short time while they slowly came down from the high. After a few minutes Tobirama realized that he was absently stroking Madara’s endless waves of hair but didn’t bother to stop now that he’d started. It was soft and felt nice between his fingers and he didn’t see why he should deny himself the pleasure.

Eventually he felt the other man stirring, fingers clutching at his skin, and the reality of why they were here came crashing down on him like a cold slap in the face.

“Feel any better?” he asked quietly, wincing when his companion stiffened in response.

“No.” Madara’s fingers tightened in his side a second time but he said nothing about it. The alcohol mostly numbed the pain anyway. “Did we get back at them?”

“Yeah. Sure did.”

“Then…shouldn’t it feel good? I mean it _felt good_ but… _I_ don’t feel good. My chest doesn’t feel good. Ugh, how do people deal with all of these stupid emotions all the time?”

Madara burrowed himself further in to Tobirama’s sternum, digging his face in to the sweaty skin as though wishing he could crawl inside and hide from the world. Rather than say anything about it, Tobirama simply lay still and continued to pet the man’s hair. How could he possibly say anything when he wished he could do the same?

“What do you think I did wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Tobirama’s heart missed a beat and just like that he could once again feel the cracks that the alcohol had filled in for a time. “Whatever it was, I must have done it too.”

“Yeah well…you’re dumb.”

“And you’re an ass.”

“Thanks.”

Honestly, Tobirama thought that being call dumb just after a round of amazing sex shouldn’t have been so comforting but at the moment he was willing to cling to any bastion of normalcy in the raging sea of confusion that was his emotions at the moment. Neither he nor the man currently falling sideways on to the bed were particularly good at emotions even on the best of days.

“Do you want to sleep?” he asked quietly. Madara hesitated.

“I’m all sticky,” he whined.

That, at least, Tobirama knew how to fix.

On shaky legs he stumbled down the hall until he found a bathroom, wetting a small hand towel and returning to the bedroom to help Madara clean up. After tossing the soiled cloth towards what looked sort of like a hamper to his fuzzy vision, he fell back down on to the bed, instinctively curling himself around the warm body already there. It registered only dimly that this was still Madara but he couldn’t bring himself to care. They were both sad and broken and he felt the oddest sense of comradeship between them for the first time in their lives.

“I don’t want to be alone,” Madara mumbled in to his pillow. Whether he meant for the rest of that night or simply in general, Tobirama wasn’t sure. Either way he agreed.

They fell asleep with satisfied bodies and aching hearts, twisted together and holding fast to each other as their only comfort in a world that had hurt them both.


	2. Chapter 2

A number of different things demanded an equal amount of urgent attention the very moment Madara rose back in to the land of the waking. Or rather, the land of the living. He very seriously questioned whether or not he was currently crawling his way back from death – or possibly sliding down in to it.

His mouth tasted like the bottom of a garbage heap, made twice as disgusting by the lack of moisture on his tongue. A massive headache was doing its best to crack open his skull, radiating out from the center of his brain to cause stabbing sensations in his eyes where the sunlight filtered through the cracks in his lids, and the sounds of birdsong from the window caused physical pain with every note. The muscles in his body ached and his skin was tacky and itchy in some very suspicious places.

Most telling of all, his ass was sore. He hadn’t bottomed for anyone in more than two years, not since he began seeing someone who had never topped and had no desire to. As much as he had missed it he simply couldn’t see Yuuto changing his mind so that left very few options for why he was currently feeling the aftereffects of rough sex in that particular area.

Soft breathing down the back of his neck painted the picture of his worst fear right before the memory of _why_ he’d had the opportunity to bottom last night returned to him.

It took several minutes of breathing through the pain before Madara was able to open his eyes and face the world, a world in which he’d caught Yuuto underneath another man and ended the longest relationship he’d ever had, the one he had started to think would last a lifetime. Apparently he was single now. Or he would be once he confronted that asshole at some point today. Maybe tomorrow. Whenever his head stopped pounding.

Knowing that he had gone out to pick up someone for a bit of good old fashion revenge sex helped calm a great deal of the instinctual panic but not all of it. There was still the matter of who exactly he had picked up. His memories of the night before were patchy at best and for some reason all he could picture was the image of himself riding Tobirama, of all people.

Had he had kinky henge sex? In fairness to Tobirama, he was quite an attractive man physically. That just seemed like a very strange choice for a henge when he could have asked whoever it was behind him to look like anyone in the world.

Carefully lifting his aching head and peeking backwards, Madara felt his stomach swoop and bolted from the bed even as his mind tried to process what he was seeing. Evidently it hadn’t been a henge. And in other news Senju Tobirama looked disturbingly peaceful while he was sleeping off a night of drunken debauchery. That seemed wrong to him for some reason but Madara admitted that in the midst of throwing up in his own toilet was hardly the best moment for him to make sense of the world.

When he stumbled back to his bedroom Tobirama was sitting up and blinking around with confused, faintly nauseas look on his face.

“Did we–?”

“Yes,” Madara answered decisively, not allowing him to continue. His ass clenched in memory and he really wished he could at least remember if the sex had been worth it.

“Huh.” It looked like his unwanted guest was still a little bit drunk, if that floaty quality of his voice was anything to go by.

Looking at him, Madara weighed some pros and cons before mentally tossing both hands in the air and deciding that he really didn’t want to deal with this at the moment. He crawled back in to bed, fitting himself in to the same cocoon of warmth he had bolted away from, and firmly closed his eyes. The world could wait until he was ready to face it.

He nearly jolted back upright when a hand snaked around to press itself against him forehead. All that kept him from biting it on reflex was the soothing sensation of healing chakra which flooded in to him, extracting an involuntary moan of sheer pleasure. The headache faded rapidly under Tobirama’s ministrations before the hand dropped away and skidded down to drape over his waist. When he peeked over his shoulder again, Tobirama had once more fallen in to unconsciousness.

Which, he thought, was probably for the best. If they could hardly deal with each other sober then dealing with each other half drunk and hungover probably wasn’t the greatest idea. He closed his eyes again and followed suit.

Neither of them woke again until several hours later and they barely managed to stumble their way through a very awkward and slightly panicked ‘this never happened’ agreement before Tobirama gathered his clothes and bolted, leaving behind nothing but a dirty towel in the corner of the room and an ache in Madara’s backside. It was pretty much what Madara had figured would happen so he didn’t really understand the cold, empty feeling which struck him the moment he was alone in the house.

Or, he did, but Madara and denial were old friends. He had lived alone before and he would survive doing so again.

The next few weeks were painfully awkward for them both. Madara ended things with Yuuto as coldly yet calmly as he possibly could, not wanting to give the man even the slightest impression that he had been hurt by what happened – and he made certain the other man understood that he knew what happened. It occurred to him too late that not showing his emotions well was probably what had brought this entire situation upon him, though that was no excuse. If Yuuto had a problem with the way he expressed himself then the idiot should have at least tried to speak to him about it before spreading his legs for someone else.

Rumors reached him quickly that Tobirama had also ended his own relationship, although the story went that their breakup had been much more violent. Madara reluctantly applauded his old enemy from afar and did his best to head off as much gossip on the subject as possible. He felt honor bound to support anyone going through a situation similar to his own, even if only in small ways like that.

When Hashirama found out the truth about the end of his little brother’s relationship his reaction was both spectacular and utterly terrifying, Madara gave some serious thought to revealing his own similar situation, just for the satisfaction of watching the same retribution be visited upon Yuuto, but in the end he kept his silence. There was no need to air his personal business so publicly when he was already hearing whispers that Yuuto had decided to leave the village for some ‘unknown reasons’.

It took a month for Madara to cross paths with Tobirama again in any significant way and although he should have been able to predict how things would end up, he truly did not see it coming. Patterns will continue but this was not a pattern he had expected this particular Senju to fall in to.

“Never thought I’d see the day I found you drinking on the job.”

Tobirama didn’t look especially surprised to see him down in the bowels of the interrogation tower at two in the morning. All he did was take another delicate sip of his liquor and straighten the pages in front of him, returning his eyes to where he had left off reading.

“Since my shift officially ended several hours I’m not technically on the job right now. And what I do in my spare time is my own business, isn’t it?”

“Pour me a drink and I won’t tell your brother.”

It was a pleasure to watch Tobirama shudder in revulsion at the idea of how Hashirama would react to such knowledge. He reached inside the bag on the seat next to him and produced another cup, wiping it out perfunctorily with the corner of his shirt before emptying a bit of whiskey in and pushing it across the table.

“Since when do you drink whiskey?” Madara demanded after pounding back most of the glass in one gulp. He was curious to see Tobirama hesitate.

“Picked up a taste for it after I drank half a bottle of yours.”

“A-ah.” Not knowing how to respond to that, Madara turned his head away and took a more delicate sip.

He was a little thrown off that Tobirama would so easily allude to that night after how emphatic they both had been that they never speak of it again. Even more surprising was that he would allow the memory to influence him in any way, such as giving him a craving for a new type of drink. Madara himself had been doing his best not to think of what happened at all.

That didn’t stop the recurring and disturbingly pleasant dreams from happening but sometimes even one’s best efforts do not succeed. It was at least a pleasant failure, all things considered.

“More?”

“Yup.”

Tobirama didn’t bother to look up as he lifted the bottle of whiskey to pour a splash more in to Madara’s glass. It took a moment of narrow-eyed study – during which he questioned his own sanity for being even the slightest bit curious – but Madara was able to make out the tiniest hint of color on his companion’s cheeks and he nearly toppled over sideways in shock. Was the man with a heart of ice actually blushing? He never would have thought Tobirama capable of such a thing. It was a surprisingly pleasing image, if he were honest with himself.

Fiddling with the glass in his hands, Madara spoke before his brain could scream at him not to.

“You thinking about it?”

“Shut up.” Tobirama’s cheeks stained another shade deeper and Madara licked his lips anxiously, striving for a casual air.

“Pour me another and I’ll let you fuck me over the table.”

He supposed he should have been smug about how fast Tobirama’s arm shot out to snatch the bottle and fill his cup but he didn’t really have time between the wash of hot pleasure in his belly and the body that appeared behind his own rather suddenly. Madara didn’t bother to fight the hand guiding his own up to bring the cup to his lips, opening his throat to the whiskey at the same time Tobirama attacked his neck with sharp teeth.

Fingers were already sliding around his hips and loosening the knot holding his robes closed by the time he finished swallowing the drink. Madara licked his lips again to catch a lingering droplet and let his head fall, let his body be gently pressed down until his hands were propping him up on what he dimly recognized as the proposals from the Merchant’s Coalition. It had been a month since he’d had sex, a month since his body was reminded of how much he enjoyed being filled by another man, and only now did he finally allow himself to admit he had been craving it this entire time. It wasn’t love but it was _some_ form of human connection and he was at a point in his life where he was willing to take what he could get.

When his robe finally loosened and fell to hang from the crooks of his elbows, Madara arched under the broad hand that skimmed down the length of his spine. He was already stirring inside his trousers and it wasn’t going to take very much to bring him to full hardness; it seemed he had lost a lot of the stamina he used to have, all the patience for withstanding lingering touches instead of driving straight to the heart of the matter. Already he was half-contemplating demanding that Tobirama move faster and they had barely even started.

It seemed he didn’t have to, however. After a moment of quiet rustling Tobirama’s hand came in to view to deposit a small tub of weapon oil on the desk next to the papers, an herb-based oil that Madara happened to know made a very effective and very safe lubricant for certain sexual purposes. He moaned low in his throat as his pants were tugged down over his hips and the hem of his robes hiked up above them.

Tobirama didn’t bother with words as he coated his fingers and traced them around the outside of Madara’s hole, putting his mouth to better use nibbling a line across what bits of shoulder were not covered by unruly hair. He bit down harshly at the same time he pressed a single finger inside, sending Madara up on to his toes. Then he waited until Madara came back down to slide his finger deeper and slowly draw it back out, repeating the motion over and over in slow, steady strokes.

“Fuck off,” Madara breathed. “I’m not s-so breakable that you have to be – this slow!” He closed his eyes under the vibrations when Tobirama hummed against his neck.

“You are incredibly tight, though. I don’t enjoy hurting my partners. Not even you.”

“ _More_ , you pompous bastard!”

“Like this?”

Tobirama’s smug question was accompanied by a second finger joining the first and sliding in deep until Madara’s arms trembled, threatening to send him crashing down on to the table’s surface. While that wasn’t exactly an unpleasant image in his mind, he was enjoying the warmth of another at his back just a little bit too much to give it up just yet. He pressed back in to both sensations, feeling the brush of something hard against the side of his thigh and catching his bottom lip between his teeth just to keep any embarrassing sounds from escaping. Moaning and gasping were fine, obviously nothing the other hadn’t heard before, but he wasn’t about to start spilling his guts about how much he had missed a bit of friendly human touch.

“Just like that,” he choked out instead before biting down on his lip again, eyes rolling back in his head when Tobirama curled his fingers and found his prostate. “ _Gods_ just like that!”

“Mmm.” Tobirama’s body covered his like a blanket in his half-hunched position, tracing the shell of his ear with a warm tongue.

Eventually he added a third finger, then a fourth, and Madara was closer to begging than he was prepared to admit by the time Tobirama deemed him stretched enough. Judging by how sore he had been after the last time he supposed he should have been grateful for the care being taken with his body. Gratitude, however, would have to wait until after he was stuffed and sated. At the moment all he could feel was impatient.

His hole fluttered with loss as the fingers inside of him were drawn out and Madara keened, hips twitching with need until a large hand took hold of them to keep him still. His knees almost collapsed when he felt something blunt and thick pressing against him but he locked them in place and pressed backwards perhaps harder than was advised.

A gasp escaped him, half pleasure and half pain, as the head of Tobirama’s cock breached him all at once.

“Fuck, Madara.” Tobirama grunted and pinched him reprovingly in the side. “Don’t do that!”

“Then do _me_!” he ground out, already rapidly descending past the point where he had the mind space to be ashamed of his own desperation.

He missed the warmth immediately as he was shoved forward over the table but Tobirama didn’t give him any time to protest. As soon as his chest touched the wood, presenting his ass in what he smugly thought must have been a very tempting manner, Madara felt two hands on either side of his hips and then his partner was thrusting forward. His voice broke on a sharp cry. By tomorrow morning he was likely to have ten little bruises shaped like Tobirama’s fingers but he cared less and less with every inch he was filled.

What he did care about was when all movements paused for a few seconds as soon as Tobirama bottomed out, the skin of their pelvises flush together. Wriggling did nothing but earn him another pinch.

“Just let me have this,” his partner rasped.

The sound of Tobirama’s already deep voice turned even more gravelly by sheer lust had him hardening impossibly. Staying still right at that moment was quite possibly the hardest thing he had ever been asked to do yet he was reaping the benefits of obeying before half a minute had passed. Madara’s entire body shook under the glorious sensations as Tobirama slowly pulled out, inch by inch, then pressed back in just as slowly.

Impatient by nature, he could count on one hand the amount of times he’d gone through the effort of forcing himself to slow down during sex. Usually he preferred the rush and the freneticism of what could only be called fucking. What they were doing now was still a far cry from lovemaking but it was doing a damn good job of convincing him of the benefits therein – especially when Tobirama found the perfect angle almost effortlessly on the next thrust and paused to grind himself against that brilliant spot deep inside.

“Slow,” he gasped stupidly, fingernails leaving tracks in the table. “S’good. S’really good. Don’t stop.” He opened his mouth to say something else only to choke on a shattered sound instead when Tobirama dragged across his prostate again.

His partner hushed him, murmuring encouragements before falling silent again and allowing the small room to fill with Madara’s helpless sounds. They bounced against the stone walls and echoed back in his own ears, somehow only serving to increase his excitement and embolden him to moan louder. Even the simplest things drove him higher and higher: strong hands caressing him, the cold table underneath him in contrast to the hot body behind, every involuntary gasp that blessed his ears. All of it worked together to leave him nothing more than a mass of frayed nerves sensitive to the slightest touch and it felt as though Tobirama were the only thing keeping him from flying apart.

The speed of Tobirama’s thrusts increased so gradually he hardly noticed at first. Pleasure crashed over him in wave and wave, turning his brain to mush, and he only realized when one of the hands stroking his skin slid around to take his weeping cock in a firm grip.

“ _Aaaahhhh_.” Instinctively clenching his ass only served to remind him of how wide he was spread open at the moment. “You – close – I’m close. Harder. Fucking…harder.”

“Think you mean – _nnh_ – ‘fuck me harder’.”

“Yes! Fuck me harder!” Madara dropped his forehead against the wooden table and closed his eyes, rocking in to the fingers fisted around him and then grinding backwards, again and again until he thought he might go mad from sheer pleasure. Sparks erupted in the base of his spine when his pleas were answered, Tobirama fucking in to him with enough force to bruise his hips.

He didn’t even have time to warn his partner he was about to hit his peak. Nirvana crashed in to him and stole his breath before he’d made it halfway through the thought and Madara came in to Tobirama’s hand with a sound that tore at his throat, barely aware of the way the other man stiffened behind him with a helpless grunt. It felt as though his orgasm lasted forever but by the time it had faded to shivery aftershocks they were both collapsing down in to a messy heap of quivering limbs and gasping lungs. Madara did his best to stay as still as possible, enjoying the weight on his back for as long as he could.

Rather than seeming in a hurry to move, Tobirama settled further against him with a final twitch of his hips, dropping his forehead down between the shoulders blades in front of him. The hand he had reached around Madara now cupped the inside of one thigh, smearing cum across skin, although neither of them paid much attention to that part.

“We are spectacularly bad at forgetting things, aren’t we?”

Madara hummed in to his own arms, amused. “Shut up, nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” Tobirama nipped lazily at his skin to make him squirm. “Careful, Uchiha, or I’ll feel compelled to give you something to remember out of sheer spite.”

“If that was meant as a threat it was a poor one.”

“Why, because you might enjoy it?”

Spluttering indignantly had very little effect when bent over a table with a softened cock still buried in his ass while his hole slowly leaked cum down both thighs but Madara refused to let that deter him. He stopped quickly and shivered at the rumbling sensation of Tobirama’s body laughing against his own.

When was the last time he’d made someone laugh? Despite having been together for more than two years, he couldn’t recall when he had last done anything to make Yuuto laugh or paid any special attention to the man. Their relationship had been falling apart right under his nose for a lot longer than he’d been willing to open his eyes and see.

Yet here was Tobirama chuckling in to his skin as easily as breathing, amused by nothing more than his natural reaction to something. Seducing him had been an easy decision, a powerful draw that he couldn’t resist, but making him laugh somehow felt like a much bigger accomplishment. The smile on Madara’s face lingered as he listened contentedly to the sounds of happiness and wondered what he could do to hear them again – also doing his best not to think too deeply about why he wanted to. Getting attached to Tobirama would clearly be a terrible idea but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have anything at all. It wouldn’t make him less lonely but at the very least he would not be _alone_.

Rolling his head, he peered down the length of his own body and watched the fingers absently caressing his inner thigh, following the nonsensical patterns with his eyes. As long as it didn’t mean anything then what harm could there be in having this again?

“You know most sane people would have sought their beds by this hour,” he murmured, smirking when the fingers on him passed before slowly drifting up to cup his sticky length again.

“Are you inviting me in to yours?” Tobirama asked.

“I believe I am.”

Not getting attached was going to be the easiest thing he ever did. Him and Tobirama? Never.


	3. Chapter 3

Encouraged back to consciousness by the muted sound of birdsong, Tobirama woke slowly, languorously. Warmth cocooned him and held him gently between the sunbeams falling across his bare chest and the body spread out next to his own. Madara, he had long since discovered, enjoyed sleeping on his belly most of all, whether that meant collapsing across his lover’s chest or burrowing so far in to the mattress that his head ended up underneath his pillow rather than on it. As someone who preferred to sleep on his back, Tobirama thought their sleep styles complimented each other rather nicely.

The days when Madara ended up sleeping beside him presented rather delicious opportunities not available to him if he was held down by the other’s body weight. A lazy, contented smile painted his lips as Tobirama carefully lifted the sheets and rolled over, crawling in to the space between Madara’s thighs and draping himself over the perfect scarred back so trustingly displayed to him.

Soft kisses across rough skin earned him a few quiet murmurs before Madara hummed and fell back in to his dreams. Resting his weight on one hand, Tobirama used the other to skim his palm down the length of the incredible body he knew so well until he reached the mounds of his partner’s ass, cupping and massaging simply for the pleasure of doing so. It was a testament to how used to each other’s presence they both were that he was able to crawl downwards and leave a trail of gentle kisses in his wake without rousing the other man.

Rummaging through the mussed sheets for the small bottle which had been dropped and forgotten in the activities of the previous night, Tobirama popped the cap to dole out a small portion before carelessly tossing it back in to the chaos. He spread the slick around Madara’s entrance and pressed just the tip of one finger inside while gently biting down on the flesh of the perfect ass before him.

Madara groaned with pleasure, still not quite awake, and spread his legs on instinct. Tobirama took that as the open invitation he had been hoping for to slide his finger in the rest of the way until he was able to curl it and locate that spot deep inside which always earned him the most delicious noises. Right on que his lover let out a gasp, body stiffening for a moment as he finally woke fully and then relaxing again to press himself back in to the finger inside him.

“Good morning,” Tobirama said, hiding a smile by nibbling on pert flesh again.

“So far yes,” Madara breathed in to the pillow, eyes still closed as he simply relaxed and enjoyed the sensation of being stretched. Soon he was moaning and gently rocking his hips in to every glide of the three fingers opening him up.

Not in any particular hurry, Tobirama took his time lavishing Madara’s skin with open mouthed kisses and playful nips while teasingly brushing against his prostate on every fourth pass. He waited until the body underneath his own was loose and pliant, almost melting in to the sheets, before shifting upwards to lick a stripe up the back of his partner’s neck and removing his hand to search for the lube again.

He said nothing when Madara passed it to him wordlessly, knowing exactly what he would be looking for without even having to ask.

Just over half a year had passed since the two of them met in a dingy bar and fucked away their feelings for the first time. Many had wondered how they were able to get along so much better all of a sudden but surely none of those curious people would have guessed the true reason: that the two of them had been sneaking in to each other’s beds on a regular basis ever since. Not just their beds either; they snuck away from meetings to make out in empty supply closets, pulled each other in to empty alleyways, and repeatedly violated certain health and safety rules in Tobirama’s lab.

One morning Madara had absently offered coffee and from then on things changed in a way neither of them had ever even tried to address. Eating breakfast together became a regular occurrence. Kisses were exchanged with every file and document passed between them in the tower – in private of course. A couple of times they had even fallen asleep on the couch together and separated again without even the thought of something more intimate.

Last night Madara had come over without prompting and the two of them had enjoyed a very pleasant dinner together before tackling each other in to the bed for one of their rougher nights. Thinking about it sparked a pleasant warmth in the pit of Tobirama’s stomach but he found he was simply not in the mood for anything too feral this morning.

Right now he was feeling languid and relaxed, full of desire for his bedmate but without any urge to hurry. It seemed Madara had no problem with this as the man sighed at the first touch of something thicker against his entrance. Tobirama pressed inside of him with almost no resistance, so relaxed was his partner, and both of them groaned with relief when he began to move. His hips rocked back and forth in a slow rhythm and his head dropped to lay kisses across the back of Madara’s shoulder blades for no other reason than to taste his skin.

“ _Nngh_. Just like that,” Madara breathed as he always did, fingers curling in to the sheets beneath them.

Tobirama gave no answer but to shift his weight and bring one of his hands up to rest over top of Madara’s, stroking the back of his hand until it unfurled so that their fingers could weave together and hold tightly. With that simple connection their lazy romp became something else entirely, something much more intense between one moment and the next. Tobirama found himself panting against his lover’s skin, not increasing the speed of his thrusts but pushing in deeper and changing the angle until he found one that had Madara gasping and writhing, quietly pleading with him not to stop.

Caving to another’s demands had never been so pleasant, as was usually the case whenever they found themselves in bed. It was surprising how often he could reduce Madara to a begging mess yet even more surprising was how desperately he wanted to give in to every request. More often than not, pleasuring his partner became his goal even more so than seeking his own end and still he had never had more satisfying sex.

When he felt Madara’s thighs begin to tense around his own, the surest sign the man was close to orgasm, only then did Tobirama increase his pace the slightest bit. Not enough to say he was in any way hurrying but just enough to bring himself closer to the edge so that the moment Madara convulsed beneath him with a drawn out cry, it took barely a handful more thrusts before he too was washed away under waves of bliss. Their hands held tight as their hips twitched and bucked with the sensations running through them.

And then they were collapsing down in to the sheets, Tobirama curling his body around Madara’s at just the right angle to steal a few kisses, but his efforts were shortly interrupted when the one underneath him began to chuckle faintly.

“Stop laughing at me,” he protested. “I just gave you a _very_ nice wakeup call and you’re laughing at me. Have I done something to amuse you?”

“Not in particular. I just feel…light.”

“Well hold on to that feeling, I suppose. Perhaps it will save your temper when we meet with the Hyuga this afternoon.” Since he had been denied his kisses, Tobirama dipped down to attack his partner’s neck instead. If he nibbled on the same spot long enough perhaps he could leave a mark which would be hidden from sight only by the shadow of Madara’s collar. He’d discovered over the past few months that he very much enjoyed leaving secrets marks on this man.

Groaning with despair at being reminded of today’s duties, Madara burrowed his face deeper in to the pillow. “You just had to say it didn’t you?”

“My sincerest apologies. Can I possibly make it up to you in some way?”

“That depends. What did you have in mind?”

Madara’s face reappeared wearing an open grin that did funny things to Tobirama’s chest. Unfortunately, however, he wasn’t given the chance to respond to it in any way.

Both of their heads whipped around when the door crashed open suddenly, hitting the wall with a loud bang to admit a tall figure they recognized only too well. Of all the people to suddenly appear while they were still naked and wrapped around each other, Hashirama was probably the worst one.

Eyes closed with the force of his too-wide smile, Hashirama waltzed in with a sunny, “Morning brother! We ran out of coffee so I came to steal some of yo- MADARA!?” He stopped dead in his tracks, both hands coming up to clasp the sides of his face in shock, and it was hard to say who was more embarrassed between the three of them. Each of them were rapidly turning all different shades of red while Tobirama instinctively curled over his partner and yanked up whatever blankets he could grab to cover Madara’s figure.

“Hashirama,” he growled. “What the _fuck_?”

“What is going on here!?”

“GET OUT!”

“But you’re both _naked_!”

“ _GET OUT_!” Tobirama and Madara yelled together, Madara’s voice muffled from under the blankets and entirely mortified to have been caught with a cock still up his ass and cum dripping down his thighs.

Hashirama did leave but very reluctantly, taking several half steps backwards only to freeze in place and babble incessantly until one of them snarled at him to get moving again. Eventually he made it out in to the hallway and slowly closed the door to give them a bit of privacy, although they could still hear him murmuring to himself in shock. Only when his sibling was finally out of sight did Tobirama relax, leaning all of his weight back on to his knees so he could remove the blankets he had thrown over Madara’s head.

Two dark eyes glared out back him from a mass of tangled hair, matched with a grumpy frown which he really shouldn’t find half as adorable as he did. In an effort to soothe he reached down and gently swept the hair away from Madara’s face.

“Do you think he’ll notice if I teleport us to your place?”

“Yes,” Madara huffed. Then he paused before amending, “Although it would probably take him a while.” Tobirama sighed.

“We might as well face the music now, I suppose. Otherwise he’ll find us later.”

As gently as possible, he pulled his hips back from where their bodies were still connected, both thrilled and slightly embarrassed by the quiet gasping protest Madara made at finally being empty. He helped his partner clean up a bit and rummaged around for their clothes. Neither of them were able to look at each other when they realized that the ‘convenient rag’ Madara had wiped himself off on the night before had actually been his own shirt, leaving him with nothing to wear now unless he wanted to face Hashirama wearing splashes of their combined essences across his chest.

Tobirama quickly loaned him a shirt and then there was nothing else to do but to face the man waiting for them, presumably in the kitchen if the clinking sounds of ceramic were any clue. With much reluctant shuffling they made their way out in to the hall and down towards the kitchen where they found Hashirama already seated at the table with a steaming pot of tea. He was also smiling too widely again in an extremely creepy way.

Both of them sat when Hashirama waved them in to their seats as though this was his own home.

“So. You two.” His smile grew impossibly wider. “I had no idea.”

“Anija, it’s…not what you think.”

“What I think is that you two were very clearly naked, very clearly having _sex_ , and I had no idea that you were even dating! I’ll admit, I’m a little insulted that neither of you saw fit to tell me. Madara, I know you, it would take a lot of trust for you to allow someone to take you in that posi-“

“HASHIRAMA!” Madara lunged across the table to swing both fists at his best friend, now twice as embarrassed as he had been before. Tobirama watched him from the corner of his eye and wondered if what his brother said was true.

Eventually he reached over and hauled his lover back over to the correct side of the table, ending their little spat. Madara huffed and crossed his arms while Hashirama eyed them both like a disappointed parent. The silence stretched until finally Tobirama decided that he might as well be the one to break. His brother wasn’t the type to be pacified and leave without at least some sort of answer so one of them would have to get it over with.

Shifting uncomfortably, he tried to think of a way to put their situation in to words without revealing too much of himself to the man at his side. There were certain things he had been wanting for a while now but refrained from asking for out of fear that his wanting would not be reciprocated. He would much rather keep what they currently had then risk losing it over something silly like reaching for too much. At the end of the day he had a small part of Madara all to himself and that was more than enough; it had to be.

“Madara and I having been sleeping together for some time now,” he began slowly, seeing his brother begin to twitch and hoping to placate the man while his thoughts raced in circles.

“You mean dating.” Hashirama spoke with such a certainty that both of the lovers cringed awkwardly.

“Um…”

“Well…”

The two of them peeked at each other, both of them immediately turning away again, and Hashirama pouted. “Well? You do mean that you’re dating right? Brother I thought you told me once that bed-buddies never works because at least one person always falls in love!” Tobirama cringed even harder.

“I suppose I did say that,” he mumbled.

“Okay, so. You two should just start dating now if you aren’t already because clearly you will be in the future!”

“Anija!”

“Hashirama, that’s not how it works,” Madara hissed. “Butt out!”

“But I–!”

Tobirama sent his sibling as stern a look as he could muster around the blush staining his cheeks. “This is our business. Leave it alone.”

“Are you telling me you don’t love each other!?”

Deafening silence followed his question. Neither of them dared to look at the other for fear of what they might or might not see there. Tobirama clenched his jaw, hoping his true feelings about their situation weren’t written plainly across his face, and did his best to avoid his brother’s eyes as he kept his head facing resolutely forward.

Swinging his head back and forth as though if he could just catch one of their gazes he could stare an answer out of them, Hashirama’s frown grew sadder and sadder until at last his entire frame wilted and he sniffled wetly.

“Oh. That’s…I just really wanted you guys to be in love.”

“Tch. So did I.”

Hashirama’s entire body jolted upright at the same time Tobirama’s head whipped to the side, both of them staring as Madara clapped both hands over his mouth. He very clearly hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Madara stared at the table in front of him and did his best impression of a ripe strawberry while the other two asked themselves if they had really just heard what they thought they had heard.

Clinging to sanity by a single thread, Tobirama kept his eyes locked on Madara while he spoke to his brother.

“Anija, would you give us some privacy please?”

“Eh!? But I want to know what happens!”

“This is none of your business. You got the answer you wanted now get out of my house.”

“So mean, Tobi! It wasn’t even a good answer!”

Hashirama twisted and pouted but all he got for his troubles was a stern finger pointed towards the door so he gave in with a huff. It took him almost three minutes to leave the kitchen because of the way he stopped after every step to peek back at them as though they might be stupid enough to start talking before he was even out of the room.

Once he was finally out of sight they had to wait for his chakra signature to make its way slowly towards the front door and out on to the stoop – where he plonked himself down to wait like the stubborn child he was. Tobirama settled for internally rolling his eyes since his actual eyes were still busy staring at Madara. His lover was doing his very best to disappear in to the floor but he hadn’t run away yet, which Tobirama chose to take as a good sign.

In the past several months he had wished many times for more than they had yet never dared to ask for it – or even to hope for it. Now he felt foolish for allowing himself to give in to cowardice.

“What precisely did you mean by that?” he asked, aiming for a middle ground between blunt and subtle. Madara shifted uncomfortably and refused to look at him.

“Don’t play games, Senju, I think we both know my meaning was perfectly clear.”

“How about I tell you what I think is happening here and you tell me if I am correct?” Tobirama waited until his lover grunted in vague acquiescence before continuing. “I think that you and I were both made cautious by the inauspicious ends to our previous relationships. I think we both thought we could handle a purely physical relationship, that it was indeed exactly what we needed at the time. And I think we both fell in love with each other yet dared not bring up the subject.”

With a jolting twitch Madara turned to look at him at last, eyes wide and jaw slack.

“Have I missed anything?”

“I didn’t want it to be real,” Madara replied quietly, dropping his gaze again with a faint look of shame. “Because if it was real then I thought I might fuck it all up like I did before. What we have is…easy. Nice. It works. Now it’s going to change and what if it doesn’t work anymore?”

“What if it does?” Tobirama hesitated and then reached out to slide his hand over top of Madara’s.

“You just implied that you _love me_ , you shut up for a while.”

Grinning, he wormed his fingers inside the other man’s iron grip and leaned over to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Just tell I’m right.”

“I was under the impression you thought you were always right.”

“Yes but it does wonders for the ego to have that confirmed by others.”

Madara sent him a withering look and Tobirama took advantage of having the man’s attention once more by aiming a little better this time, taking his partner’s mouth in a warm and languid kiss which he hoped said everything he had only had to courage to imply.

They melted together immediately. A quiet groan rumbled up Madara’s throat and Tobirama swallowed it down eagerly, pressing closer and deepening the kiss. It was hardly the first time they had indulged in slow kisses and tender touches but it was the first time they had both been openly aware that it meant something, that it was more than just a means to a physical end. Romance was neither of their strong suits but Tobirama thought that as long as they didn’t try too hard then they really could make this work.

He only became aware of the fact that he was smiling when they parted slowly and he discovered that Madara was as well. Soft smiles turned to wicked grins when he leaned back in to bite teasingly at his lover’s bottom lip.

“Your ego does not need any inflating,” Madara informed him.

“Come on,” Tobirama said with a laugh. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“Hashirama is still waiting on the porch…?”

“And he can keep waiting. It serves him right for sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong, even if things did turn out in my favor this time.”

Madara laughed with him and let himself be dragged back in to the bedroom, pulling Tobirama down on to the bed with a self-satisfied grin. At some point they would have to leave their cocoon of safety and face the world – and the brother – outside. But knowing they would no longer do so alone made all the difference in the world to two broken men who found that the jagged edges of their hearts fit rather perfectly together.


End file.
